republicans, democrats.......all these years we have heard that social security is in a lockbox...?

He is fear mongering, that is something he does far too often, he doesn't have the authority to stop ss payments to begin with and it is still solvent, not for a few more years but still solvent at this time

Where did you hear that. The politicians couldn't stand that money sitting idle and raided social security many years ago and replaced it with IOUs to be paid back from general revenues at a later date.

But Obama telling people that he cannot guaranty that people will get their SS checks if the debt ceiling and taxes are not raised is just a scare tactic (he has no control over that anyway). What I don't understand is why he temporarily decreased social security taxes when it is already due to eventually run out of money while less people are working lately (due to his agenda) to pay into it.

I forget which poster said it, but someone said Obama is using the old and disabled as his "human shield". He'll sink pretty damn low to get his way.

That money is owed to the people who paid into Social Security all these decades and should be paid before the interest on the national debt. If he wants to tax the rich that would be a great way to do it! And if that happened I guarantee we would see some serious spending cuts in the very near future.

Typical Dem tactic. Scare the old people. Either Obama is lying, or the hundreds of democrats who’ve been telling us for decades that the Social Security funds are safe in a “lock box” were lying.

Social security was never in a lockbox. Congress has been raiding the fund for years in order to pay for pet projects. One of the planks in Gore's platform was to protect the fund. You see what happened.

Don't blame Republicans for this myth. For as long as I can remember, common logic by those who understand the mechanics of Social Security have been saying that it would go broke. However, it was the golden child of FDR and no Progressive Liberal has wanted to touch it. To be fair, Republicans were scared to bring up the issue due to the hysterics of those who have become dependent on it. George W. Bush was one of the first to have the guts to even try.

Even if they don't raise the debt limit, there won't be zero dollars....there just won't be enough to pay ALL the bills.

If the social security checks don't get mailed out it will be because the Government decided other bills were more important.

Cuz all these years they have been raiding the lockbox to buy Stinger missiles for Osama Bin Laden, support tyrants in Chile, Egypt, and Iraq and to support terrorism in Latin America

hope this helps

to throw a scare into boomers and seniors (likely tea-party supporters) to sway upcoming elections perhaps? i predict that if any budget cutting is going to be done, the Dems will make sure it is done in the most painful ways possible - and blame the resulting pain on the evil Repubs who made them cut the budget.

It was destroyed by LBJ when he put that Trust in to the general budget. Once there off it's own independent books, clever accounting tricks drained it dry to fund LBJ's failed wars on poverty and communism. in 1990 it was kicked lose on it's own books again, a dried out dead bug shell, eaten by the democratic party spider.

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